Apple Books

Joining Apple Music Replay, which shows you your top songs, artists, and milestones of the year, is a new feature for your digital books and audiobooks purchased through Apple. Here’s how to see Apple Books Year in Review and learn your “reader type.”

As we approach the end of 2023, Apple is taking a retrospective look at the last year in media. After recently naming Taylor Swift artist of the year for being the “most-streamed female artist in Apple Music history,” it’s time to check in with Apple Books and Podcasts.

As iOS 16.4 beta testing continues, we got some new features with the second release. After axing its classic skeuomorphic design with iOS 16 last fall, the upcoming release brings back the “Curl” page turn effect in the Apple Books app, here’s how it works.

Apple Books has launched a new initiative to expand the number of audiobooks available on its store. It is inviting independent writers and larger publishers to opt-in to have their written books converted into audio form using AI voice synthesis models.

Apple announced the scheme towards the end of last year, and — as noted by The Guardian — the first AI-narrated books are now available to download in the Apple Books Store.

Spotify audiobooks are now on sale, following the company’s announcement that it was further diversifying its business model by acquiring the audiobook platform Findaway. It follows a previous diversification into podcasting.

If this sounds like old news, that’s because Spotify previously dipped its toe into the waters by offering just a handful of public domain titles, but has now 300,000 paid titles available …

Apple on Tuesday sent a reminder to sellers of books with content available in the Apple Books Store about new tax regulations in the Canadian province British Columbia. Remittances for book sales in Canada were reduced by a 7% provincial sales tax (PST) on Apple’s commission for publishers based there.

Apple released iOS 15.5 in May with enhancements to the Podcasts app, Apple Cash, and overall bug fixes. However, it seems that the update also caused some issues for Apple Books users as the app stopped working for some people after the iOS 15.5 update.

I have been using Kindle for most of my e-book needs for the last decade. The last few years, I have been reading on a Fire Tablet as it offers additional capabilities than a Paperwhite for a more affordable price tag. Since becoming an Apple user in that time, it’s hard to get over the all-in-one seamless user experience of Apple Books. Now that Apple’s Friday Night Baseball is bringing content to Apple Books, is it a good idea to switch from Kindle? 

Apple this week announced its own book club through the Apple Books app. However, instead of having an entire curation team behind it, all of Apple’s book club content is curated by Canadian media personality George “Strombo” Stroumboulopoulos.

2020 is (thankfully) coming to a close and Apple has shared some handy collections for what it considers the best content from this year. The lists include the most popular podcasts, books, audiobooks, and more like “Biggest Shows of 2020.” And in a first, Apple Podcasts has named a “Show of the Year” with the honor going to NPR’s Code Sw!tch.

Apple has released a neat new rich resource today to help writers publish their content on its Apple Books platform. The new website walks through writing, publishing, marketing, and looking at analytics with Apple Books and since it’s web-based works with both Mac and Windows.

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Earlier today, the Apple Books app sent out a push notification offering a free Apple Book to users. The notification mentioned read-alongs for kids, cozy mysteries, and audiobooks for the whole family.

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On Sunday, I published a list of my favorite podcasts of the decade. Podcasts are a huge part of my entertainment “diet,” but another one that has become just as big is reading. In 2019, I read 69 books. In a noisy world, reading has become my go-to activity to quiet my brain. For my last post of the decade, I wanted to give you my favorite books of the year. Whether you read on Apple Books, Kindle, Audible, or even paperback, I think you’ll enjoy these books.
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A few weeks ago, I mentioned how, between all of the excellent podcasts, music, movies, TV shows, and books that the thing most creators are fighting for more than ever before is people’s attention. No longer are we limited by the songs in our library. Apple Music or Spotify gives us access to almost every song available. 99.99% of podcasts are free, so there is always something new to binge. Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, Apple TV+, and countless others provide us with more TV shows and movies than we could ever hope to watch. The industry, in my opinion, with the most opportunity going forward, is the digital book market.
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Out of all the electronic devices I own, the one I’d want to give up last is my Kindle Oasis. In my opinion, it brings the best of technology while ignoring the worst. I even wrote a few months back about the idea around Apple creating an e-ink reader to take on the Kindle. Despite Apple’s attempts with the Apple Books redesign, the Kindle and Audible ecosystem is still the best place to be for book fans. I was recently made aware of a feature of the Kindle that Apple hasn’t matched but should be on their radar for a future Apple Books upgrade: US public library system integration.
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Apple today announced that Oprah’s Book Club is today launching inside Apple Books, and an Apple TV+ show of the same name will be available starting November 1st.

The exclusive TV series will feature interviews with authors of the featured books, with new episodes released every two months.

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